Group Seeks White's Return To Academy

April 13, 1986|By Mildred A. Williams of The Sentinel Staff

About 50 parents and students of Central Florida Academy agreed Saturday to send a committee to change the school's door locks and to demand on Monday that the Rev. Eldred White be reinstated as principal.

Angry about the firing of White April 1 and the expulsion of several students at the south Orange County school, the group also voted to require the acting principal and secretary of the newly formed board of directors to vacate the premises.

''I'm tired of this mess. I want my kid back in school,'' said one woman who would not give her name. She said her child was expelled last week for talking to a group of students who were picketing the academy.

White, who founded the school 11 years ago, said he had been advised by his attorney that he and the parents had legal authority to occupy the school because his name is on the lease of the building on Winegard Road. He said the group was using the same tactics to reinstate him that were used to oust him. ''I feel I am the legitmate principal of the school,'' White said. ''In my opinion, it is impossible for any group to replace the principal of Central Florida Academy Inc.''

Neither acting Principal Charles Buck nor secretary Terry Thompson could be reached for comment Saturday. A woman at Buck's home said he was out of town until this evening and that Thompson was with him.

White said Buck and Thompson plotted to fire him after he lost financial control of the school in February because of tax problems. He said he returned from taking students on a field trip to Circus World on March 27 and found all of the school's door locks changed. He was fired April 1.

Buck has said that White was fired because he was disruptive to the school's operation. White has claimed there were rumors accusing him of child molestation and theft, but Buck has denied that school officials made such claims.

Parents and students, meeting at Carter Tabernacle CME Church in west Orlando, gave White a unanimous vote of confidence.

Saying they believed they were misled by Buck, the group also voted to dissolve the board of directors elected last month that was responsible for White's firing. That eight-member board was replaced by a 15-member parent advisory committee.

Although the Central Florida Academy corporation has no bylaws or articles of incorporation to abide by, the group said they believed their decisions were as legitimate as those made during the March meeting because they were handled in the same manner: a majority of parents voted for them.

The private, non-profit school for 7th- through 12th grades has been troubled by legal and financial problems since it opened in 1975.

White ran into trouble last year when he could not pay taxes on teacher salaries and accepted an $8,000 loan from Buck in December to help defray the school's expenses.

In February, the IRS demanded back taxes from White and confiscated $2,000 worth of school equipment. Buck, Thompson and another school director later formed a corporation, paid the $200 in back taxes and gained financial control of the school.

Parents at the meeting said they donated the money to the school and understood that they were the owners of the school equipment that was returned to the school when the taxes were paid.

White claims the new corporation, which renamed the school the Central Florida Academy of Orange County Inc., is not a legitimate corporation registered with the state of Florida. He said the new administration is trespassing.

He said he tried last week to get the Orange County Sheriff's Office to remove the school officials but was told by the sheriff's legal department that a judge would have to issue an injunction before they could to that.

White said he was not bitter with Buck or Thompson, he simply wanted things to get back to normal for the school's 100 students, who have only eight weeks of class remaining.